I also have a a squirrel problem. I have a yard full of fruit and vegetable plants and in anticipation of a large bounty of cherries, tomatoes, peaches, persimmons and berries, at the insistence of my wife, I negotiated an agreement with the bandits (squirrels) to take only their fair share. But these pests are taking more than their share! I thought that they were honorable and would abide by the agreement and they would only take their share, but they have violated that agreement and on top of that; they have recruited my wife to their side, so it is becoming difficult to deal with them. From the look of their fall population, this spring will be much worse. To make matters worse, the squirrels have enlisted the crows and they are feasting together on my persimmons, peaches tomatoes, and berries. I have a live trap that I am going to set this week end. I went to Walmart and bought a crossman airgun. I told my wife that I intended to show the squirrels who is smarter, so she should switch sides! She said that from her experience the question of who is smarter had already been answered. What did she mean by that?

I'm sorry for your trouble. there are a lot of squirrels where I live. the first thing I did was cover my (soil filled but plantless) pots in a very hot spice then on top of that put soil so that it looked normal. The rodents would dig and get the hot spice in their eyes.

They have not returned to dig, even though I've since changed soils.

Maybe that's what was digging in my radish beds... D= I have heard cayenne pepper sprinkled all over the soil is great for repelling cats--maybe it would work for squirrels too?

As you can see by the squirrel watering can, my wife is a fan. As you can see by the animal in my pot, I am probably not. @ CharlieBoring: my wife won't let me use my Crossman. Don't know how successful I'll be, but I just cut up pieces of hardware cloth with the complete raw edge portions turned up all around the perimeter forming a bunch of sharp spikes. Right now they're about 2" X 3" and I am placing four to five of them on the bare soil. I am hoping they are pokey enough to keep the little rat b*stards out of the pots. If that doesn't work, I will re-deploy my live trap relocation program.

The spikes won't have any effect. The wire itself will keep them from digging.

'Course, they could decide that their nests need screen doors...

I saw a video where someone designed a large slingshot. Had a few nuts in a little tray and when the squirrel sat in the tray to eat the nuts - he got to fly fifty feet.

And here I just used a slingshot to fire marbles at them. Talk about a missed opportunity.

I've read that chicken wire works,maybe give that a try....or get a resident cat to patrol your yard :>)
Christine

LOL, I was thinking of getting a cat for that purpose too! Problem is, my wife believes all cats should be "indoor only". I might need to apply for an exemption in this case, since the proposed cat would not be strictly for pet purposes but would have a more utilitarian function.

Alex

My dog keeps all manner of creatures out of the yard, even birds. He can jump to 6 feet, and I practice the frisbee with him. He almost caught a bird. I lost 1 raspberry and one strawberry last year, no nets, no nothing.
He was the cuttest puppy!
{{gwi:19949}}

This post was edited by Drew51 on Thu, Apr 24, 14 at 15:41